What’s in a Name?

I owe my apologies first to the one random person who reads this blog occasionally; I wrote the last one in the editor and didn’t catch the mistakes until after I posted it. There aren’t enough grammatical errors to make it work correcting and, heck, I’m just plan lazy about it. I digress though.

I’ve given serious thought as of late to changing my name, well my legal name. Regan if you hadn’t guessed is just a name; it’s not legally connected to who I am. Lately I feel like neither is the male name I was given at birth. In the long view I know I will someday live completely as female, so names such as Haley, Emma or Claire wouldn’t be inappropriate; however eyebrow raising for a man someone appearing to be male. Skylar, Tristan or even Avery would be more appropriate and more in line with my tomboyishness. I’m especially fond of Tristan.

For me it represents a distancing myself from the maleness of who I was. I’d remarked recently to a friend of mine that I what I was finding appealing about male bodies had changed. I always found them appealing, but now I was more focused on things like their body hair (the roughness of it) and their muscles and just generally the things that held them out as male, the masculine things I suppose. And it was a little wild to think that was me to a certain extent a little less than a year ago, before I started HRT. I could really get sidetracked on all the HRT changes, but that’s a post unto itself. The point being that I’ve had time to adjust to the new me and even still it’s constantly evolving.

I know all the good, sound reasons why I want to press ahead with the name change. In the long view, I think its part of my psychological well-being as I continue to separate myself from who I was and move toward who I’m becoming. All that fits into a nice, neat box until you consider what it means to those around me.

My parents, for example, know that I see a gender therapist, they certainly know of my pink boy past; yet I think they have some bit of parental denial going on and think I’m somehow doing this to cure myself. This despite, a conspicuous lack of body hair, the physical changes and, of course, letting my hair grow out. Calling them to tell them my new name is Tristan, or something else along those lines, isn’t going to gently dismantle their denial, it’s going to shatter it.

On the same line of reasoning, I read an article by a mother whose daughter had successfully socially transitioned midway through the school year (fourth grade to be exact) and as kids do at the end of the year, brought home her artwork, including pieces from before she transitioned. The mother lamented on the loss of her child’s male name and the meaning it had for her. I, we, don’t think about it, but that must be an issue for a lot of parents in these situations. Read it here.

At the same time, I had committed to letting my parents have “naming rights”. If I move forward with my intention to change my name now, that pretty much eliminates the definitively girl names from my wish list I was going to give them and allow them to choose. They’re still getting to choose a name, but it’s an even shorter list; pre-approved at that. So I’ve given them the gift of choosing my new name, but then I’ve managed to take it back from them bit by bit.

As for the non-parents in my life, those that know are a different breed then those that don’t know. I’m speaking, of course, of the fact that I’m not as out as I should be. Sure the NYT article has given me a new voice, but I’m still in the process of coming out. Fast forwarding to Tristan would definitely raise some questions and do I tell the truth that I don’t feel connected to my male name anymore and explain the details of being transgender/gender variant; or do I just make up some story to cover my tracks. Above all I don’t want to lie to people or even create the appearance of lying. My therapist has already scolded me that dragging my feet about coming out this late in the process is akin to lying.

Well that’s it for this update. Up next, I’ll probably talk about wanting a nose job, badly, and debating getting an orchiectomy. They’re pretty much on the same plain as the name change.